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RARE 1ST EDITION

NATURAL MAGIC 

by : PORTA, 

1658, 

 

Natural MAGICK. By John Baptista Porta, a Neapolitane: In Twenty Books: 1. Of the Causes of Wonderful things. 2. Of the Generation of Animals. 3. Of the Production of new Plants. 4. Of increasing Houshold-Stuff. 5. Of changing Metals. 6. Of counterfeiting Gold. 7. Of the Wonders of the Load Stone. 8. Of strange Cures. 9. Of Beautifying Women. 10. Of Distillation. 11. Of Perfuming. 12. Of Artificial Fires. 13. Of Tempering Steel. 14. Of Cookery. 15. Of Fishing, Fowling, Hunting, &c. 16. Of Invisible Writing. 17. Of Strange Glasses. 18. Of Statick Experiments. 19. Of Pheumatick Experiments. 20. Of the Chaos. Wherein are set forth all the Riches and Delights of the Natural Sciences. London, Printed for Thomas Young, and Samuel Speed, and are to be sold at the three Pigeons, and at the Angel in St. Paul's Church-yard. 1658.

This is the first edition in English. [vi],409,[i],[6] pages. Folio size, measures 11" x 7". Original leather binding, rubbed and worn. Professionally rebacked  with new spine. The text block is tight, pages toned with scattered soiling. The margins of first few leaves are worn (no loss of text). Beginning at page 393, the lower outer corner progressively gets "chewed" away, by page 399 there's small loss of printed text.  There are a numerous in text woodcuts. 

"Giambattista della Porta (1535-1615), also known as Giovanni Battista Della Porta, was an Italian scholar, polymath and playwright who lived in Naples at the time of the Scientific Revolution and Reformation. His most famous work, first published in 1558, was entitled Magiae Naturalis (Natural Magic). In this book he covered a variety of the subjects he had investigated, including the study of: occult philosophy, astrology, alchemy, mathematics, meteorology, and natural philosophy.

Della Porta perfected the camera obscura. In a later edition of his Natural Magic, Della Porta described this device as having a convex lens. Though he was not the inventor, the popularity of this work helped spread knowledge of it. He compared the shape of the human eye to the lens in his camera obscura, and provided an easily understandable example of how light could bring images into the eye.
Della Porta also claimed to have invented the first telescope, however, he died while preparing the treatise ("De telescopiis")in support of his claim (his efforts were also overshadowed by Galileo Galilei's invention of the "telescopium" in 1609)." 

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